1. Field of the invention
This invention relates to a method for manufacturing a printer device, such as a method for manufacturing a printer device applied to an on-demand ink jet printer device (termed herein simply an ink jet printer device), or an on-demand carrier jet printer device (termed herein simply a carrier jet printer device).
2. Description of Related Art
Heretofore, this type of the ink jet printer device is such a printer device in which ink liquid droplets are emitted via an ink emission hole responsive to a recording signal for printing an image on recording mediums, such as paper sheets or films. The ink jet printer device is recently coming into widespread use because it lends itself to reduction in size and cost.
In this ink jet printer device, a method employing a heating element and a method employing a piezoelectric device is customarily used as a method for emitting ink liquid droplets.
The method employing the heating element emits the ink liquid droplets via an ink emission hole under a pressure of bubbles generated on heating the ink by the heating element to ebullition.
The method employing the piezoelectric device deforms the piezoelectric device to pressurize an ink pressurizing chamber charged with the ink to emit ink liquid droplets at the ink emission hole via ink entry holes formed in the ink pressurizing chamber.
This method employing the piezoelectric device may be enumerated by a method of linearly displacing a layered piezoelectric device made up of three or more piezoelectric devices bonded to a vibrating plate for thrusting the ink pressurizing chamber via the vibrating plate, and a method of applying a voltage across a single-layer piezoelectric device or double-layer piezoelectric devices bonded to the vibrating plate to warp the vibrating plate to thrust the ink pressurizing chamber.
In the latter method, that is the method of applying a voltage across a single-layer piezoelectric device or double-layer piezoelectric devices bonded to the vibrating plate to warp the vibrating plate to thrust the ink pressurizing chamber, an expensive layered piezoelectric device is not used, so that the manufacturing costs can be lowered. This method, however, has a drawback that fine pitch is difficult to realize at the time of bonding the sliced single-layer piezoelectric device or double-layered piezoelectric devices to the vibrating plate. Moreover, if a paste-like piezoelectric material is applied to the vibrating plate, such as by coating, and fired to produce a piezoelectric device, the firing temperature of not less than 1000xc2x0 C. is difficult to set, in view of thermal resistance proper to the vibrating plate, such that characteristics of the piezoelectric material cannot be exhibited sufficiently.
In addition, if, after bonding the piezoelectric material to the vibrating plate, the piezoelectric material is cut to plural piezoelectric devices, the piezoelectric material is difficult to cut to a constant depth at all times, due to abrasion of cutting tools or processing tolerances of machine tools, thus occasionally damaging the vibrating plate.
For overcoming the above problems, the present Assignee proposed in Japanese patent Application Nos.7-193366, 7-1922201 and 7-190750 an inexpensive ink jet printer head employing a single-layer or double-layer piezoelectric device, in which the printing process can be stabilized and characteristics of the piezoelectric material can be exhibited while the fine pitch can be coped with.
However, the method for splitting the piezoelectric material disclosed in the above-referenced publications is such a method in which the piezoelectric material bonded on the vibrating plate by an electrically conductive adhesive is split by a dicing device, that is such a method in which a rotating blade is in a stationary position and a work, that is a piezoelectric device, is set on a stage and moved in this state in a one-dimensional direction, that is lineally, as shown in FIG. 1. Thus, the processing shape is limited to a linear shape such that the shape of the piezoelectric device after splitting is comprised of linear sides.
Since the site that can be machined by each stage movement is determined by the number of the rotating blades, the number of piezoelectric devices that can be obtained by splitting is governed by the number of blades that can be driven at a time, such that tens of piezoelectric devices cannot be obtained at a time by splitting.
On the other hand, the spacing per piezoelectric device obtained by dicing is broader by approximately tens of micrometers than the width of the blade used for dicing, so that, if the blade 50 xcexcm in width is used, the spacing is limited to approximately 70 xcexcm. Also, if the width of the blade used for dicing is reduced to the smallest value possible, the amount of abrasion of the dicing blade is increased, as a result of which the blade width needs to be set to not smaller than 100 xcexcm and hence the spacing of the split piezoelectric devices needs to be set to not smaller than 120 xcexcm, such that the desired narrow pitch cannot be achieved.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a splitting method which may be used in place of dicing for the splitting process of the piezoelectric devices and to provide a method for manufacturing a printer device in which the processing time can be shortened as compared to the splitting method by dicing, the shape of the piezoelectric device more suited to the liquid emitting shape can be realized in place of the linear shape that can be achieved with the conventional method, and in which the spacing between piezoelectric devices can be set so as to be narrower than the blade width.
The method for manufacturing the printer device according to the present invention resides in forming a resist at a pre-set position on a major surface of the piezoelectric device bonded to a vibrating plate. Using this resist as a mask, powders or particles are sprayed onto the piezoelectric device for removing the portion of the piezoelectric device not carrying the resist to enable the piezoelectric device of a desired shape to be formed at a pre-set position.
With the present manufacturing method for the printer device, since the number or the shape of the piezoelectric devices produced depends only on the resist distribution, a large number of the piezoelectric devices can be produced simultaneously to shorten the processing time to improve productivity. Moreover, the piezoelectric device of an optional shape may be manufactured.
In addition, with the preset manufacturing method, the separation between neighboring piezoelectric devices can be easily comprised within the width of not more than 10 xcexcm, while the nozzle pitch may be reduced.
Also, with the present manufacturing method for the printer device, abrasion to the tool need not be taken into account when manufacturing the piezoelectric device, so that more emphasis can be placed on the ink emission performance in designing.
Further, with the present manufacturing method for the printer device, substantially the entire surface of the piezoelectric material bonded on the vibrating plate can be processed thus significantly reducing the working time.